Two days later, at Lady Vernal’s ball, Aubrey knew her stalker watched her.
Olivia swept up as soon as Aubrey arrived; Aubrey wore a long silver gown—not quite debutante white, not quite not. Olivia was full of news of a scandal—someone else’s for a change—and Aubrey, half-listening, reflected that Olivia’s life was not a bad one. She executed its routines and excitements and not infrequent ennui with panache. If one was to have Olivia’s life, Olivia was the model of how to lead it.
I don’t want this life.
As an alternative to fear and pain, this life wasn’t a bad one. Aubrey must have thought that when she chose to forget. But as a single option, an ultimate decision, it didn’t offer much.
Charles with his inexhaustible equanimity offered so much more.
She danced and drank punch and held light conversations with the (real) debutantes; some of their chaperones looked on with indifference; others plucked their charges away from Aubrey’s presence; no one could decide what she was.
I need to decide.
“Miss St. Clair.” A blond man with a supercilious air approached her without an introduction—he obviously didn’t consider her an untouchable debutante.
He did seem vaguely familiar. Aubrey couldn’t place the face but she could place the feeling: hairs rising on the back of her neck; the sensation of being watched, hounded.
“Leslie Jacobs,” the man said with a bow that seemed faintly mocking. “We met at the Academy during your adventure, as Sir James calls it.”
Aubrey kept her company smile in place, fangs hidden. “Hello,” she said and gave him her hand, claws tucked out of sight.
“I hear you have questions. Seems you would have contacted an Academy member before the police.”
He gave her a faintly quizzical look, the kind of look that said he didn’t think much of her intelligence (ask the police questions about magic?) but was too much a gentleman to say so.
Aubrey said, “Sir Prescott has been most helpful.”
He smiled, all teeth and charm. “I would be honored to help you as well, Miss St. Clair. Perhaps—” he gestured towards the ballroom’s terrace.
Does he think everyone is a fool or just women or just me? But it was time to drink the potion. Aubrey went with him onto the half-lit terrace where quiet couples leaned on the balustrade.
“Not entirely private,” Mr. Jacobs said.
“So many people,” Aubrey said, forestalling his next gambit. “I suppose we should take a stroll in the garden.”
A pause, then Jacobs chuckled. “I forgot how, ah, saucy, you can be, Miss St. Clair.”
He didn’t mean it as a compliment.
She continued, patting her hair and fluttering her eyes, “As long as I don’t damage my health. Otherwise, I just might have to accept Sir Prescott’s invitation to his spa.”
Mr. Jacobs’s lips curled. “The Academy has many faces.”
“And which do you represent?”
He said, a hand at her elbow, “Some of us care about the Academy’s magical traditions. We have created powerful formulas that could help our government, our country. We could resolve the problems of our age.”
“Without my involvement. I’ve forgotten my bespelling.”
“Have you?” he said softly, bending to peer into her face.
